Posts Tagged “Amit Rai”

Not very successful film about a Muslim community in India. A suicide bomber has blown up a marketplace and the Indian authorities respond using force against other Muslims, detaining them for two weeks without trial. Tired of being blamed for the actions of one man, the local leader calls for a general strike, whereby each shop owners will close his store until the unjustly incarcerated men are set free. Our protagonist, an auto mechanic, is given an important job to do by governmental engineers on the day before the strike is to commence. An 1940s Ford engine is brought to his shop by official looking people who need him to fix it. It seems that the final urn of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes was recently found in a bank vault and the government is getting prepared to drive the ashes to the final Indian river using the exact same truck that carried them after his death. This is a huge honor to be picked to fix this engine, but if he keeps his shop open to do the work, his fellow Muslim businessmen will think that he’s disloyal. He will try to speak to the community leaders, but they won’t listen. He’ll be assaulted by the thuggy Muslim youth for going against orders. He’ll try and try to point out that Gandhi may have been murdered for being sympathetic to the plight of Muslim Indians. He’ll lose sleep and rely on his closest friend, a doctor who will tell him to stop stressing.

And what will the women say? We have no idea because there are only two women who appear on screen, only one of whom has a line of dialogue. There is a funeral scene which involves only men.

By the time the film ends, all warring parties will come together in a show of support that the Mahatma would have wanted to see. There is really no surprise here.

Simplistic and boring and overacted. There are some Bollywood type songs that you can bob your head to. I suppose we don’t see many films about the Muslim population of India. However, just last year at Cinequest Firaaq played, which told the story of race relations in India with much more heft.